Otherworldly Mission
by Zerodone
Summary: A normal girl is saved by Team RWBY by pure chance. She hasn't seen the show RWBY, so she just thinks of them as some cosplayers. When the truth comes out, they try to find a way back to Remnant. Of course, it's not easy, considering the government, the girl awakening a strange power and a certain mask-wearing person on the loose. Oh, and volume two has yet to happen in Remnant.
1. Chapter 1

I got an editor or beta reader as it is called on this website. He calls himself Recycler. One big applause for Recycler! Anyways, something I should explain.

"speech"

~thoughts~

'also thoughts, because Recycler edits my chapters this way and I forgot to change it'

December tended to be simultaneously one of the best and one of the worst months of the year for Sarah. The best because, obviously, it was Christmas time, and the air was full of holiday cheer. The worst because, at this time of the year, it tended to be very, very cold. And Sarah could never really stand the cold.

Luckily, right now she had the luxury of being inside the grocery store, as she was in need of a few things for herself. So now she was standing in front of a shelf, looking at a wide variety of Christmas cookies. At least half of them were probably made of the same ingredients anyway, with just a different brand name (and price tag, for that matter) slapped on the box.

At least they were nice to look at, even though that was part of the market strategy. Sarah picked up a peculiarly creepy looking cookie jar that had a picture of two smiling cookies on it. Two smiling cookies with chocolate sprinkles as very dead looking eyes.

~Who buys these things?~ Sarah wondered to herself, putting the jar back on her shelf. She looked around a little more, until she heard a beeping noise coming from her watch, noticing that it was nearly 9 PM.

~Oh, fucking hell! They're closing shop in an hour! Ugh, I don't wanna go out in the cold... Guess I better make full use of my remaining time. To the drinks!~

Unfortunately, her exhibition was cut short, because some clumsy twit somehow managed to knock over an entire shelf with hundreds of glass bottles on it, perfectly flooding the entire section. The girl sighed sadly. Seeing as she exhibiting the rest of the shop extensively already, she decided to finally pay for the stuff she gathered so far and leave.

She walked outside the building, where she was greeted with a cold gust of air. Shivering like a leaf in the wind, the girl pulled up the hood from her pullover, forcefully putting her ponytail under it and tightened the zipper on her jacket as she started on her way home.

Sarah decided to take a path away from the main street, since this would get her home quicker. The only downside was that there weren't any streetlights on this path since it lead through a park, which in return was directly connected to the woods near the town. The only light source there at night were the nearby houses and the moon (if she was lucky). It was just enough to distinguish the path from the patches of grass around oneself.

Despite it being so hard to navigate through, a lot of people actually used it at night because it was a convenient connection to the grocery store, not to mention a splendid place to go out with friends for a scenic walk.

And because so many people used it, the risk of a thug or mugger showing up were considerably low. In fact, no one around these parts had even seen so much as a pickpocket. Really, the biggest problem here was that some drivers didn't keep the speed limit of thirty kilometers an hour. Of course, as the old saying goes, there's a first time for everything.

Sarah hadn't been paying attention to the path, distracted by the nearly full moon and thoughts of her warm, cozy apartment when she accidentally bumped into someone.

She had been walking rather fast, and the force of the impact sent the girl to the ground. Sarah dropped her bags in the process, spilling the contents everywhere. The sound of glass shattering could be heard as well.

"Hey, watch it!" A gruff voice slurred.

"Sorry," Sarah squealed, her face flushing red from embarrassment as she picked herself up. ~Shit! Not only did I make a fool of myself, but now everything's on the ground. And of course, I forgot to recharge my phone-~

"Ah!"

Her train of thought was interrupted, when the man grabbed her arm and brutally yanked her, causing her to yelp in pain.

"Sorry ain't gonna cut it, girly!" He shouted, taking the girl hanging from his arm by surprise. Her surprise was very soon replaced with fear, because the man pulled her closer, making it possible for her to at least see his eye color: a dirty brown. "Ya made me drop my booze!" As those words left his mouth, Sarah could smell the liquor on his breath.

"I'm sorry, I'm really sorry!"

"Yeah, if yer're sorry, then ya gonna buy me a new one!" The man shouted directly at the girl's face. She flinched, instinctively trying to get away as she panicked.

"Let go of me!" She shouted, aiming a kick for his groin. However, due to the unfortunate position Sarah was in, namely half dangling from one of his arms, her aim was way off and all she managed to hit was his leg. The man let out a growl, but else he didn't show any sign that the hit actually hurt him.

"That's it, bitch.," he growled in a low tone. "Now, yer made me real mad."

Sarah let out a shriek as she felt being thrown through the air, rather clumsily. The girl landed on her left arm, groaning in pain upon impact. The man drunkenly approached her, pulling out a switchblade from his coat as Sarah tried to get up.

Caught up in their own situation, none of them notice the pair of glowing yellow eyes approaching their position. The eyes were fixated on the ground, moving left and right as if they were carefully trying to avoid something. Just as the man was about to kick the girl on the ground, the eyes arrived behind the man.

"HEY!" Came the sound of a furious voice.

"Ah! What the-" The man let out a surprised scream, jumping slightly. He turned around, and the yellow-eyed person socked him in the gut.

"ARGH!" The drunk bent over as the fist of the other person hit his stomach, causing him to drop his switchblade in the process. He then received a sharp, upward kick to the face, knocking out several teeth.

The person with the yellow eyes had apparently enough and decided to finish him off. Acting like a professional wrestler, the person picked up the man, held him above their head and then threw him a dozen feet away. Said man screamed in pain as his head slammed into the pavement.

He moaned in pain, his drunken mind having trouble registering what just happened. He tried to push himself off the ground, but before his body got as much as move an inch upwards, he felt something hard hitting the back of his head, turning his world dark.

"Damn, Blake!" A boisterously cheerful voice spoke from the darkness. "I'd say that's a new record."

"Yang?" The other voice came from where the yellow eyes were positioned. "What are you doing here? I thought you'd stay with Weiss and Ruby."

"Ruby was getting worried that you were taking so long," The other girl, Yang, explained, turning on her flashlight. Blake flinched, shielding her eyes with an arm until the other girl pointed with the light to the ground. "Did that guy give you any trouble?"

"No," Blake shook her head. "I just lost track of time for a bit. When I finally went back, I saw him trying to hurt that woman over there." Blake pointed with her thumb towards Sarah, forgetting for a moment that the other girl couldn't see that well in the dark.

Sarah, meanwhile, was still on the ground with wide eyes. She observed the flashlight and the pair of glowing eyes coming closer to where she was.

The latter particularly caught her attention, because they appeared to reflect the moonlight like those of a cat.

The lights moved towards her until Sarah was able to properly distinguish what they were wearing, which could best be described as wholly unfitting for the current weather conditions.

"Hey, are you okay?" The girl with the flashlight asked, crouching right in front of Sarah. Thanks to that, she was able to see the girl was wearing mostly yellow clothing with black short-shorts, and had a veritable mane of golden hair and violet eyes.

Looking upwards, she saw that the cat-eyed person was wearing mostly black and had black hair with a peculiar bow topping it off. The girl who had spoken to her, Yang, snapped her fingers to get her attention back.

"Hey, look at me for a second," she said calmly. "Did he hurt you at all?"

Sarah flinched and closed her eyes again. Just thinking about what that man would have done to her made her shudder slightly. It was one thing hearing about being mugged like she had almost been on the news, but experiencing it yourself is on a whole new level.

Even with the drunk currently unconscious, the girl on the ground couldn't think of anything else to do but hold her face in her palms and start sobbing.

"Hey, hey!" Sarah felt the blonde touching her back and slowly rubbing it, trying to calm her down. "It's alright. That guy isn't gonna cause you anymore trouble. I promise."

"Hey, Yang?" The other girl, Blake, spoke up. "How about you get her to the others? I'll help her with her things, just go make sure they're still okay."

"Got it. Wanna use my flashlight?"

"It's fine. I got my Scroll with me."

"Alright. Hey, come on," Yang spoke gently, getting closer to Sarah. "Let's get you away from here and out of the cold." The blonde gently grabbed Sarah's arm and motioned her to get up.

The girl on the ground nodded slowly and tried to push herself up. Yang helped her out, dragging her up as carefully as possible. Sarah let out an involuntary grunt, her arms and legs stinging a little from being thrown to the ground.

Yang gently grabbed Sarah's arm and lead her through the night, the flashlight constantly pointed at the walking path. "My other friend and little sister are nearby," Yang explained. "By the way, I'm Yang. What's your name?"

"..."

"Still thinking about that guy? Believe me, he's not going to get up anytime soon."

Sarah remained silent, deciding to just take things one step at a time. Her face was invisible to Yang, so she couldn't really tell how well the stranger was coping with the whole debacle.

Judging from how quiet she was, the woman was better than Yang expected her to react. Either that or it was going to be a delayed reaction. The blonde had seen both happen in her life, given the shady places she tended to visit.

It didn't take the two long to exit the snowy forest and enter a more brightly lit area. Two rows of small apartment buildings stretched across a road. Each building had three floors with two apartments on each floor, meaning one building housed up to six groups of residents. It was there that the girls were able to get a better look at each other than before.

In Sarah's book, Yang looked a remarkably odd. She wore a brown jacket, with a yellow t-shirt under it, showing a good amount of her cleavage, despite the cold weather. Not to mention her lower stomach was also visible. The orange scarf looked like it was there more as a fashion statement than to keep the girl warm, just like her two yellow bracelets (At least she thought they were bracelets).

As she had noticed before, she wore black short-shorts with a belt holding some brown clothing to make her look at least partially decent. Still, her legs were totally bare, with exception of the boots of course, the only thing that appeared to be appropriate for the weather. How she wasn't frozen solid yet was well beyond her.

What made Yang look even more bizarre were her violet eyes and her impossibly long, shimmering blonde hair. She looked more like a character from some anime than an actual person.

A thought formed in the back of Sarah's mind that maybe this girl was simply cosplaying instead of wearing her normal wardrobe, though that still didn't explain how she dealt with the cold.

As for how Yang saw her, she personally found the girl to be rather plain-looking. The girl wore a black jacket, along with a blue hood from a pullover underneath. The rest consisted of jeans and a pair of black shoes.

The girl's skin looked a little pale, though that might have been only the lighting of the area. Other features she noticed were her green eyes and strands of brown hair falling down in front of her face.

"We're almost there. My sister and my other friend are just around the corner."

Sarah nodded silently and didn't complain when Yang pulled her sore arm, hastening their pace. The brown haired girl knew that around the corner was a bus station, one she used every day from Monday to Friday to get to work. Across the street would be another set of apartment buildings. She lived inside one of those.

When they crossed the corner, Sarah was convinced that she had accidentally stumbled across a group of cosplayers. Her previous encounter temporarily forgotten, she and Yang found themselves in front of two more girls, who were standing in front of the station.

One wore a bright red cloak, along with a black and red skirt, which had a small back attached to it, as well as several bullets hanging off her belt. They were probably made of plastic anyway, but wow did they looked realistic. The girl's legs were covered in stockings, along with some thick black and red boots.

The same girl also had blackish hair with red tips, small lips, and silver eyes. She was also shortest of the bunch.

The other girl wore a white and blue skirt, with frills and snowflake patterns at the end of it. She also wore a matching pair of white boots, though her legs were a little exposed. She also had a rapier strapped on her belt, though like the bullets it was probably plastic as well.

The girl's hair was dyed white, though she did a pretty good job of making it look natural. She was probably also the only one who didn't wear colored contacts since her eyes were a much more natural blue. Her cosplay also had her wearing some earrings and a snowflake hairpiece tying her hair into a ponytail.

"There you are!" The white haired girl spoke up in a slightly annoyed voice. "Where is Blake? And who is she?" she asked in a demanding tone, crossing her arms.

"Blake and I found her being attacked by some thug. Blake took care of him." Yang waved off.

Sarah couldn't help but eye the girl, as she spoke so casually about beating someone up.

"Oh, are you alright?" The smaller girl spoke up, approaching Sarah. The girl in question nodded.

"Y-yeah," she spoke softly, shuddering from a cold gust of wind. The cosplayers misinterpreted it as a sign of the girl thinking about what almost happened to her.

"Oh, I'm sorry." The black and red wearing girl bowed her head. "I didn't want to bring it up... Yang, where's Blake?" She asked, quickly changing the subject.

"I'm here," came a familiar voice from behind.

Sarah and Yang turned around and found the girl from before approaching. Now that Sarah had a better look at her, she could see her outfit better. Some kind of weapon or look alike resembling a katana was strapped on her back. The girl carried two familiar bags in each hand.

"You dropped those," she spoke, handing the bags over to Sarah.

"...Thank you." Sarah nodded, accepting her groceries back.

"I tried to find everything. I'm sorry if some things are missing."

"Th-thanks," the brown haired girl shivered. "You didn't have to-"

"Oh, it was no problem," Blake smiled.

"So, need any more help?" Yang, still holding Sarah's arm, spoke up. "Maybe we can take you back home, just in case."

"For once I'm inclined to agree with you," the white haired girl spoke approvingly. "Who knows how many more of those rascals are running around here..."

"Then it's settled!" The smallest and reddest of them jumped into the air, landing next to Sarah. "Team RWBY is going to escort...Uh, what's your name again?"

"S-Sarah," the girl said, shivering.

"Right." The girl nodded. "Team RWBY is going to escort Sarah back to her home and protect her from any danger that might befall her."

Sarah couldn't help but giggle at the kid's enthusiasm. It looked like she was trying to hold up character or something.

"Actually, I live over there." Sarah pointed in the direction of the apartment buildings. They were only a few hundred feet away from the bus stop.

"Oh," the smallest let her arm hang down, visibly deflated.

"I guess it's settled then," the white haired girl commented. "While you are still here, could you direct us to the nearest hotel?" The white one asked. "We're...not from around here, so to speak."

Sarah frowned a little, thinking. This question came kind of out of nowhere, but fortunately Sarah was able to answer. Unfortunately, it wasn't a good answer.

"The nearest hotel is in the city, which you can only get to by bus. At this time of the day they only drive every hour."

"The last one came five minutes ago," the small girl groaned. Her friends shared her sentiment, obviously not looking forward to waiting another hour in the frigid cold for the bus to arrive.

"Well," Sarah had an idea, though she wasn't entirely sure about it herself.

"Yeah, what's up?" Yang asked.

"My apartment is really small, but since you helped me earlier…"

"You're offering to let us stay the night at your place?" Yang asked, surprised and grateful at the same time.

"Mhm." Was Sarah's meek reply.

"Well, girls?"

"Thank you so much!" The red one said happily.

"As long as we finally get out of the cold," the white haired girl shivered.

"Wow, too cold for the ice queen? You know, maybe you shouldn't give me the cold shoulder-"

"Yang..." the little red one moaned. "That was bad, even for you."

"Well, I'm just warming up-"

"How about we get inside?" Blake spoke up, interrupting Yang before the blonde could go on one of her pun streaks. "The last thing any of us need is getting frostbite."

"You're right, Blake. Now then, I don't mean to sound pushy or anything, but could we please go to your home posthaste?" Asked the white haired girl.

"Yeah. Yeah, let's go," Sarah replied, checking the zipper on her jacket. "I live in this one."


	2. Chapter 2

Sarah's apartment was in one word: small. It consisted of a living room with a couch, a table, a TV and a bookshelf, which was filled with multiple stacks of papers. A single, huge window allowed sunlight to come into the room, although right now the lamp had to work as a supplement. There was nothing else of noteworthy in the room.

The kitchen was even smaller than the living room. It had a small stove, a few cupboards, a table and a single chair. The sink was filled with used plates and silverware and it smelled of leftover food.

The bathroom consisted of only the bare necessities, as in really, the bare necessities. It was too small to hold a bath, had a mirror with a crack on the bottom left corner.

As for Sarah's bedroom, it was a mess. The wardrobe was in disarray, clothes were scattered all over the ground, the bed wasn't made and was cluttered with papers, pencils and candy papers.

"Sorry," Sarah blushed sheepishly "I wasn't exactly expecting guests…"

"Well, it's better than sleeping outside." the red wearing girl stated as a matter of factly. "No offense," she added quickly.

"None taken. Uh... make yourself comfortable...I guess. I need to put this stuff away, real quick." the apartment owner gestured at the luggage Blake had been carrying for her. Picking them up, the brown haired girl made her way to the kitchen, where she began to arrange everything she bought in the various cabinets.

In the meantime, the four houseguests made it themselves comfortable on the slightly too small couch. In order to compensate for the small space the red and black girl placed herself on Yang's lab, so the others could take a seat on the couch. Blake and the white girl gave the siblings a look, before shrugging it off as another one of their quirks.

"So, where do you suppose we're?" asked Yang. "Doesn't look like we're Vale anymore. And it's definitely not someplace I have ever been to."

"Me too." the girl in white clothing admitted. "I would like to look it up, but for some reason" the girl took out a device that from outside looked like a piece of plastic in form of a smartphone "I cannot get any service for some reason."

"Me neither," stated Blake. "I tried it earlier a couple of times, but nothing came out of it. Which is strange, considering that this is at least a small town. They must have some sort of communication to the kingdoms."

"Speaking of where we're, do any of you remember how we got here?" asked Yang. "I mean, we went to the Emerald Forest, beat up a bunch of Grimm, nothing out of the ordinary so far…"

The girl on her lab nodded and picked it up from there. "I think we got a call from Oobleck. What did he say again?"

"I'm not sure," Blake admitted. Their teacher had the tendency to talk fast. Really, REALLY fast. "But I think he wanted us to check on one of the communication arrays."

The white wearing girl put a hand under her chin. "If memory serves, he mentioned something about a malfunctioning and asked us to look if we can find the cause. So we made our way to the cave it was hidden...walked inside….I'm drawing a blank."

"Same here." the other three girls said simultaneously.

"This can't be a coincidence, can it?" asked the white girl rhetorically.

"Yeah, but what did bring us here? I mean it wasn't a bomb or anything, else we would have actually noticed being thrown across the country."

"A new weapon someone developed? But how does this coincide with the malfunctioning of the communication array?" Blake wondered more to herself than to the others.

"Maybe it was aliens?" the red girl suggested, leaning backward and allowing her sister to embrace her.

"Haha, I think you have read too many comics, Rubes." The sister replied.

"I wasn't serious, you know?"

"Well, this is a serious topic." the white girl said sternly.

"A serious topic, yes." Blake nodded to herself. "However, I don't think we have enough information to find out what exactly happened. I suggest we instead focus on where we are and how we can get back to Beacon."

The other girls nodded, seeing as their train of thought was getting them nowhere.

"Well, figuring out where we're shouldn't be too hard," said Yang, grabbing a remote for the TV. "Man, talk about old school. This thing doesn't even have hologram."

"From the looks of things, Sarah only has a limited amount of money. We shouldn't stay here for too long."

The rest silently agreed as the TV was finally turned on.

"Look at it!"

*STATIC*

"My name is Bond, James Bond."

*STATIC*

"That's a lot of fish."

*STATIC*

"Don't worry. I'll only hurt you a little bit."

*STATIC*

"This is SPARTA!"

*STATIC*

"And now the weather."

"There we go." Yang placed the remote next to herself.

"Tonight we're expecting overall clear skies, perfect for hobby stargazers. Only in the north, we expect the occasional cloud to pass by. The temperature drops to minus three, so drivers beware of slippery roads.

The following morning we expect the temperature to rise up to three degree Celsius in the western parts, 5 in the northern and eastern parts, yet down to minus one in the southern mountains. You can expect snow to be coming down at a height of 800 meters.

The following week-"

But that was when Yang turned off the sound on the TV.

"This doesn't look like any country I know off." Commented the blonde. "Weiss? Have you ever been here on a business trip or something?"

"No." The now dubbed Weiss spoke slowly. "I don't even recognize the shape of the land. And I have studied Geography thoroughly."

"This is strange. The country is huge enough to be it's own Kingdom. How come we have never heard of it before?" Blake asked, her face now sprouting a worried expression. "I'll guess we just need to ask Sarah, once she's finished."

Weiss scoffed at the suggestion. "We'll sound like idiots if we ask in what country we're in."

"It's not like we have much of a choice." The youngest said, shrugging. "Or we could ask for a map. Maybe tell her that we're on a road trip or something. I don't think she'll believe us if we tell her we teleported here or something."

"That might actually work," Weiss stated. "Speaking of trip, we still need to get back to Beacon. They're probably looking for us by now. It'd be better if we call them before they assume the worst."

"Good idea."

"Hey!" The little girl complained, as she was held up by her older sister, who then stood up and gently lowered her sister onto the couch.

"I'll ask if we can use her scroll," Yang said and moved towards the kitchen. Unfortunately, when she opened the door, she accidentally pushed Sarah against some cupboards. The girl groaned in pain when she felt the handles being pushed into her back.

"Oh, sorry." Yang apologized, quickly stepping into the room and closing the door behind her. "I didn't mean to do that."

"Is okay…" Sarah moaned, slowly rubbing the sore spot on her back. "Been through worse. Anything you need or want?"

"Yeah, see me and the girls we don't have any reception for some reason and-"

"Oh you too?" Sarah interrupted Yang. "Sorry to interrupt you, but uh… that's been going on since yesterday evening. Officially they say that there's something wrong with one of their poles and that somehow caused a chain reaction for all of their poles to shut down around these parts."

"Really?" Yang blinked. "Well, this sucks." She said crossing her arms.

"Mhm." Sarah nodded. "They also said it's gonna be fixed by tonight. Gotta remembers to restart my router for this one. Good thing I don't have internet TV or else I'd be bored out of my mind." Sarah let out a sheepish laugh.

"Well sucks. Thanks anyways." Yang nodded. "By the way, you need some help?" The blonde motioned at the last remaining groceries on the table.

"No, don't worry about it. I'll be done in a second."

"If you say so," Yang said and left the kitchen, allowing Sarah to finish her task.

~I can't believe I'm so calm.~ she thought to herself. ~Screw it. I can't believe I'm hosting four girls in my house! I don't even know all of their names. And all because of…~

She shuddered, remembering her encounter from earlier.

~No, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, SHUT UP!

Good. Don't think about it, focus on the task at hand. Stash everything away, ask if the girls want anything to drink or eat and then prepare their...fuck the only thing they can sleep on are some blankets and my couch. Unless...yeah. I'll just offer them my bed. One night on the floor won't kill me.~

Satisfied with her conclusion, Sarah stepped outside and found all the girls occupying her couch. The TV was on with some kind of documentary running, though for some reason the TV was muted. One of the girls, the smallest one was sitting in Yang's lab. Sarah immediately came to the conclusion that either those two were childhood friends or were in a lesbian relationship.

"Um...do you want anything? Drinks, snacks?" Sarah offered to the girls.

"Do you have cookies?" Ruby asked innocently, to which Sarah could only sheepishly scratch her ponytail.

"Sorry, that's exactly the one sweet treat that I genuinely hate." she chuckled.

"WHAAAAT?!" The red girl exclaimed so loud, startling Sarah and everyone in the room. "HOW CAN YOU HATE THE MOST DELICIOUS TREAT IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE! YOU MONSTER!"

At this very moment, the brunette could swear that she just sweatdropped, anime style. The girl in front of her was either a joker or had a few screws loose. She hoped for the first.

"Right…" Sarah replied uneasily.

"Chillax, little sis." Yang stroked the back of the younger girl.

~Oops, forgot they're sisters. Awkward! Good thing I didn't say anything.~

"Ruby, seriously?" the white girl asked, before shaking her head. "Who am I kidding? Do you have coffee or tea mayhaps?"

"Tea yes. Coffee no. I don't drink it, so I usually don't buy it."

"Oh, it's no problem." The white girl waved off. "Oh, I believe I haven't introduced myself properly. I'm Weiss Schnee, a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"...S-same. Weiß? Schnee?" Sarah mumbled to herself. ~Probably weird Americans with a German Background. Who names their kid White Snow?~

"Oh right. What kind of tea do you want? I got lemon, peaches, red fruit and… what was it? Ah, right. And green tea."

"I'll have green tea, thank you very much."

"If it isn't too much trouble, same for me," Blake told their host.

"You got chocolate milk?" Yang asked, still holding her sister, who was crying (fake?) tears.

"Yeah. Cold or warm?"

"Get us two cold, if it's not too much trouble. That should cheer her up." Yang gestured at her sister.

"All right. Give me a minute or two." Sarah nodded walking back to the kitchen.

~Do I even have enough cups?~ she wondered.

Around four minutes later two steaming cups filled with tea, two with chocolate milk and one glass filled with soda standing on the table. Sarah had placed herself on the ground next to said table so that she didn't disturb the view to the television.

"Um, I didn't catch your name, so…"

"Oh right. I'm Ruby. Ruby Rose. Yang and I are half-sisters, that's why we look so different."

"Ah." Sarah nodded understanding.

~Still, Ruby Rose? I can get Yang if she comes from the Eastern Parts, Blake I have actually heard before. But Ruby? I can imagine that being the name of the character she's cosplaying. I better go along, for now.~

"So...um, if you don't mind me asking, what are you doing around here? I mean, in this town…"

"Oh, you know seeing the country, going on a little road trip." Yang lied pretty decently.

"Really?" Sarah asked, taking a sip from her soda. "Are you going to a convention along the way?"

"A convention?" Yang repeated.

"Yeah, I mean you look like you're cosplaying as a bunch of anime characters." The brunette pointed out.

To this statement, the four guests looked at each other with confused expressions, until they turned their attention back to Sarah.

"What's anime?" Ruby asked sounding genuinely confused.

To this Sarah could only blink for a couple of seconds.

~They're pulling my leg here!~

"Umm...seriously? I mean you...wait, is this like roleplaying? Like you're actually, genuinely trying to act like the characters you're dressing up as?"

…

"Dressing...up?" Weiss repeated slowly. "What exactly are you talking about?"

The apartment owner flinched, clearly hearing the venom in Weiss' voice. Thinking that she might have offended the girl in some way. Maybe they were proud of what they were doing, maybe this particular girl didn't like being thrown out of character. Or they simply had a bet going on with each other, namely about who broke character first. Whatever the reason, Sarah didn't want to get on anyone's bad side, especially since two of those girls saved her life.

"N-never mind." She stuttered, taking another sip from her soda. Weiss was about to press further, but Blake stopped her from doing so with a small gesture of her hand. Weiss threw the black and white wearing girl a questioning look, to which she only shook her head.

"So Sarah" The girl in question looked up from her glass and towards the blonde, who had spoken to her "got any hobbies?"

"Not really." The girl in question answered, glad for the change of topic. "I used to play chess for a while, but that's been years ago. I was once part of a volleyball team, but members came and went so fast, we never got anywhere. Else, the things I do in my free time can hardly be considered hobbies."

"Is that so. Well, lucky you, 'cause Rubes and I are passionate chess players ourselves."

"Excuse me, what?" asked a surprised and very skeptical Schnee. "You play chess? YOU of all people?!"

"What's the big deal, ice queen?" The blonde asked. "Did you think I just drive around on my motorcycle all day, beat up a bunch of mobsters and play the occasional video game?"

The looks Ruby, Weiss, and Blake gave her said more than a million words could ever hope to say.

"You too Rubes?"

"What can I say?" Ruby shrugged. "I am your sister, so I know better than anyone. But at the same time, I know the kind of impression you leave on people."

"Jeez, thanks," Yang said sarcastically, but smiled none-the-less, ruffling her sister's hair.

"Wait, Ruby, are you serious?" asked Weiss once again.

"How do you think she's so good at strategizing?" Yang asked rhetorically.

"That one board game you girls always force us to play with you at the library?" Blake asked in a deadpan manner.

"Yeah, I guess that too."

Sarah in the meantime felt a little bit left out of the conversation, but that was fine with her. And in all honesty, she didn't want to know whether Yang was joking about the part of beating up mobsters or not, because she sounded really genuine when she said that. What made it even weirder was that judging from the expression of the other three girls, it looked like they believed, no they KNEW this was true, which didn't sit well with the brunette. So, instead of indulging in the conversation, Sarah just sat back and waited for her guests to notice her existence once again.

"I still have a hard time believing you would actually enjoy a game of chess."

"Oh yeah? Well, then princess. How about we have a good old one on one and see what happens then."

"Oh, you're on," Weiss replied with fire burning in her eyes. "I'll show you the difference of minds between a princess and a peasant."

"Oh, it's oooon. It's so ooooon." Ruby sang excitedly, looking back and forth between her sister and her friend.

Weiss turned her head to Sarah. "I assume you have a chess board on hand, don't you?"

"Er…" the girl scratched her chin "I got a chess game installed on my laptop. Gimme a second."

Getting up to her feet, Sarah headed towards her bedroom, where she threw off the covers and unraveled her laptop, a book and a bunch of mangas. She picked up her laptop, flicked it open and turned the device on. After checking the status of her battery, she brought the thing with her and placed it carefully on the ground.

"Sorry, I only have that one table here. And I'd rather not get the floor full of stains."

"Not a problem," Weiss said to Sarah's surprise. From the initial impression she got from the girl, she had been sure the white haired one would complain. "If I have to step down in order to put the peasant to her place, then so be it."

"Ooooh, what's with you today, princess? I don't remember you being so assertive." Yang commented with a grin.

Weiss scoffed at the comment. "I simply refuse to believe that a brute like you has mastered the art of chess."

"Then you're in for a surprise. This "brute" here is going to show you what she's made off."

"Oh dear…" Blake mumbled to herself but smiled nonetheless. She was surprised herself that her friend was apparently or at least from the looks of things a passionate chess player. Yang certainly didn't look the part, but then again, most people thought of the blonde as a simple minded individual, which couldn't be further from the truth. As such, the black haired girl watched with interest, as their host went through a couple of folders (this laptop was really slow, nothing compared to modern scrolls) until she finally found a symbol of a knight piece. After double tapping the touchpad, the game opened and Sarah set up a new game.

"So, how do we decided who plays which color?" asked Weiss.

"I thought Weiss would take white, because, you know...white and all that," Ruby commented lamely.

"Anyone got a coin?" Yang asked the round.

"I do," Sarah announced, taking a coin out of her pocket. Without waiting, she flipped the thing up, caught it mid-air with her right hand and put it on her left palm.

"So, heads or tails?"


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: So I got an Editor, but he's busy right now, so the only way for me to edit this chapter at the moment, is by using my program.

~They're still at it…~ Sarah thought to herself, as she watched the ongoing game of chess through the kitchen doorway. By now both Yang and Weiss were down to four and five pieces each. Both players were deep in thought and had been so for the last thirty minutes. Sarah had heard of professional chess players staring seemingly for hours at the board, planning ten moves ahead. She already got a headache by calculating the possible third move. Since the game was going nowhere, she had decided to cook something up for herself and her rather unusual guests. The fact that she had guests at all was a completely new concept to her, let alone a literally colorful bunch such as these girls.

Nevertheless, she would do her best to be a good host and that meant keeping her guests fed. She asked earlier if the girls were okay with noodles and some supposed cutlets, but who knew what was actually inside. Sarah politely left out the last part, mind you. None of the guests had any objections about the menu, even if it just consisted of two simple things that literally anyone could cook up in a couple of minutes.

As the water began to boil and the oil in the pan began heating up, Sarah opened the window, shuddering as the cold night air entered the kitchen. "Fucking weather." she cursed, quickly going back to the stove. She held her hands above the pot and pan, using it like a fireplace.

In the meantime, Blake and Ruby had settled down to watching TV, while Yang and Weiss were having their match of minds. The two in front of the smaller screen didn't complain, when Ruby turned the sound back on, seemingly lost in their little game. Occasionally one could hear a soft grunt or hum coming from one of the two as their brains worked overtime, trying to find the one move that would obliterate their respective opponent.

Blake had zapped through the channels earlier until she eventually settled on one that showed a rather old documentary about a desert and it's creatures living there. While that in itself sounds rather boring, the documentary was anything but that. It had a clever narrator, who explained the things on the screen in a not only clever but also funny way, which was further underlined by the music and sound effects playing in the background. Like when the ostrich chick instinctively slumped to the ground and a piano note being plate.

"Aww~" Ruby cooed, upon seeing the little ostrich struggling back on its feet and continuing to wander aimlessly further and further away from the nest, from where its siblings had yet to hatch.

"So cute!" the cloak wearing girl squeaked. "I want one!"

Blake could only shake her head at the comment, thinking of how messy their dorm would get if they actually took one of those in as a pet. Or took in a pet in general. She herself wasn't against the idea of having a pet, but the responsibility that was needed to take care of a pet, not to mention time spending with it, cleaning up after it and not to mention the food. Pet food was pretty expensive, especially for students such as them. On second thought, money wasn't exactly a problem for Weiss, but the raven-haired girl doubted her friend was someone who would enjoy having something around that constantly left its hair all over her bed.

The documentary went on for a couple of minutes, continuing to show the lives of the ostrich, before changing the scene to a group of dark skinned, almost naked humans that lived in the desert. The narrator explained as to how these particular humans must be the happiest ones in the world, not worrying about wealth, fortune or other things humans normally were after in other countries. One elderly man was imitating the local wildlife in front of children, seemingly teaching them about the behavior of each animal.

"I wonder how they can survive without weapons, with all the Grimm around," Ruby commented off-handedly.

"Maybe the infestation isn't simply that big. Which begs the question why there isn't a town, even a small one build there. Of course, that could be easily explained due to the harsh conditions of living in a desert." Blake stated as a matter of fact.

"Huh? Yeah, I guess you're right. Still, it's weird seeing people with almost no clothes on."

"Different people, different cultures." Blake shrugged. "Personally I have never heard of them before. They must live in a pretty secluded place from faunus, humans and Grimm alike."

"I wonder if there are any faunus living in the desert. What would they look like?"

Before Blake could come up with any suggestions, a mechanical voice coming from the small table blurted:

"CHECK. MATE. WHITE. WINS."

Weiss casually waved back her ponytail, looking smugly over to Ruby's older sister. "And once again the "Ice Queen" has proven her superiority over the lowly "commoner" Yang Xiao Long," Weiss said in a parody tone of that of an evil queen.

"Yeah, yeah, we get it, "your highness"." Yang smiled. "I wasn't giving it my all anyways, you know? Just...checking out your strategy, you know?"

"Of course you did," Weiss replied, giggling at Yang's mock hurt expression. "But in all seriousness Yang, I have to admit I am impressed. I never thought you would be into chess, let alone be that good at it. No offense."

Yang in return shrugged. "None was taken. People are always surprised when they figure out that I like chess. I actually like all kinds of strategy games. Same with Rubes. Right rubes."

"Yup." Ruby nodded curtly, her eyes glued to the TV-screen. It didn't look like she was actually listening to what her sister had to say.

"Ah yes, that one game you have been so...enthusiastic about." Weiss sighed. "In any event, care for another round?"

The blonde shook her head. "Nah, not right now. Ya fried my brain pretty good back there. That and I'm starving. Didn't have anything decent to eat, since we left Beacon."

"Yes, I'm feeling rather famished myself. Hm? By the way, where's Sarah?" The supposed Ice Queen asked, looking around.

"In the kitchen," Blake informed the other two. "She said she'd cook up some noodles and make something else along with it."

"Oh good." Yang stood up, stretching her entire body, it feeling stiff after sitting for a while on the floor. "I'm really glad we met her. I don't have a single Lien on me."

"It would have been nice if we would have met her under different circumstances," Blake interjected. "At the same time, I doubt she would have taken us in under other circumstances. In a way, her misfortune was our luck."

"Oh please. We simply could have taken a hotel." Weiss crossed her arms.

"Do you have any money with you, Weiss?" the youngest of the group asked.

"Of course, I have. I always have a little bit of money on me, just in case. You never know what might happen on a mission."

"You call 200000 Lien a "little" bit of money?" Blake asked in her usual deadpan voice but didn't hide the small smile appearing on her face.

"Seriously?" Yang leaned backward, surprised. Of course, she knew that her friend was quite frankly stinking rich, but 200000 Lien for a single mission? That was insane!

"H-how'd you know?!" Weiss glared towards her color-counterpart.

"I saw you stuffing 1000 Line-notes into your wallet. Nothing against being prepared, but isn't it a little risky to take that much money with you?" Blake pointed out the obvious, pointing with her finger to where Weiss' wallet was stashed.

"Oh please." the heiress waved off. "As if a simple thug could or would dare to attempt and steal from me of all people."

"You know, Weiss. There are more than enough people out there who don't care who you are or who your family is. In all actuality, it might be counterproductive. Seeing as you are part of such a rich family, some might even consider taking you hostage, hoping to get a lot of money out of your father."

"You know, that gives me an idea…" A silly grin appeared on Yang's face, as she tapped her chin with her finger. Weiss sent a death glare towards the brawler. Upon noticing this, Yang frantically waved her arms in front of her white-clothed friend, the smile never disappearing from her face.

"I'm just joking! Jeez, can't you take a little jest, your highness?"

"This is not funny, Yang. Not even by a stretch." The heiress huffed. "I am well aware of the dangers a prestigious name like mine brings with it. Believe me, I do. However, I am aiming to become a Huntress. I am already a more capable fighter than an Atlas soldier and I plan to only go up from here. I don't plan to be the little princess that needs to rescued by some wannabe prince charming."

"Not even from Jaune?" Yang asked in a teasing tone.

"ESPECIALLY not from him." Weiss deadpanned. "The idiot just can't take a hint."

"He must have really fallen in love with you if he keeps up his attempts." The blonde continued, causing Weiss to groan.

"I'll go and see what our host is doing right now." The girl with the ponytail stated, heading to the kitchen. She opened the door rather violently, feeling a bit enraged after the little jokes her friend had made. The result was the door hitting something soft, which was followed by the sound of someone feeling agonizing pain, vocalizing it with a pitiful "Ow. Not again."-whine.

"Oh! I'm very sorry!" Weiss exclaimed, upon noticing her blunder. "Are you alright?"

"Yes…" Sarah groaned, holding her stomach, which got hit by the door handle. She slowly rubbed the spot with her hands, trying to ease up the pain. "Can I help you somehow?" She asked, her voice still a little weak.

With the years of training, Weiss hid her embarrassment from the other girl but still kept an apologetic look on her face. This had been her fault after all.

"I simply wanted to see how you're faring."

"Oh. Umm, I'm alright. More or less." Sarah chuckled at her own misery. "Actually, perfect timing. The food's all done and now we can eat. Er just….sitting arrangements are going to be a problem…"

"Hmm, I think the solution is obvious." Weiss pointed at the table. "A few of us eat here, while the rest eats in the living room. Simple as that."

"...Oh, you're right." The brown haired girl laughed in embarrassment. "But I only got one...Nah, wait, I still got a chair in my room. Could you do me a favor and call the others?"

"Certainly."

Dinner was served without any hiccups. Each girl got in line, accepted the free food with a polite and one time even cheerful "Thank you" and went back to the living room. Well, except for the last one in line, who turned out to be Ruby. The girl had been staring at the television screen for just a second too long and was now demoted to sit in the kitchen with their rather generous host as a result.

"But I wanna watch this!" Ruby complained to the others, who cold-heartedly shrugged, indifferent about the arrangement.

"You spend way too much time with video games anyways," Yang commented off the hand.

"What's that supposed to mean?! You're playing way more video games than I do!" the red hooded girl exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at her blond sibling. Yang simply replied with a wink and headed towards the living room. Sarah couldn't help herself but snort after seeing the entire exchange going on. Ruby grumbled something to herself, before submitting to her fate and sitting down on the rather small kitchen table. After getting her own plate full, she joined the red and black wearing girl on the opposite side. For a while the two of them just silently sat there, eating their respective meals, while the TV was still running in the background. Eventually, though it was Ruby who broke the silence.

"So, what kind of school do you visit?" the smaller girl asked with genuine curiosity.

"Hm?" Sarah made a gesture, needing to gulp down her food first. "I'm 22, you know. So I don't attend school."

"Oh." Ruby's mouth turned into the shape of an "o" for a moment or two. "S-sorry. I didn't think you were that old. You look like you're sixteen."

"Yeah, I get that a lot." Sarah smiled a little. "My colleagues at work never get tired of telling me about how "jealous" they are and what my "secret" is. Jeez, I swear they never shut up about it."

Ruby giggled at the comment. "So, what do you do for a living then?"

"Simple stuff." the auburn haired girl told the black and red haired one. "I was lucky and got an easy and equally boring job at a handicrafts shop. I work above the shop in a bureau that I share with two other people. Most of the stuff I do is writing orders, send suggestion orders to customers, every now and then I answer the phone...and of course, I bring the coffee to everyone since I'm the newbie."

"Wow. That sounds really boring." the smaller girl commented.

"It pays the bills. Easy job, easy money. Better than my previous job at the bakery."

"You can bake?!" Ruby asked excitedly.

"Not really." Sarah smiled weakly. "Everything was already premade and frozen, so all I had to do was to shove the stuff into the oven and sell it to the customer."

"Aw, really? That's cheap."

"It's how it's done mostly nowadays," Sarah informed the girl. "Personally I only know one shop that still bakes the stuff fresh. And that one is all the out in the middle of nowhere."

"Hmm…"

"So, I take it you all still go to school?"

"Uh huh." Ruby nodded happily. "We all go to the same school, share a dorm room, have the same classes and so on."

"Wait." Sarah held up both hands. "You have the same classes and share a dorm? No offense, but did you skip one or two classes by any chance?"

"That obvious?" Ruby let out a laugh. "It's really awesome! Our headmaster personally allowed me to visit his academy early after he had seen what I'm capable off."

"Really? The headmaster?" Sarah raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"Yup! Believe I was surprised as well when he suddenly stepped in and even offered me cookies! Come to think of it, how did he knew that I like cookies?" Ruby tapped her chin with her finger for a second, before shrugging. "Eh, probably through my uncle. It sounded like the two are good friends."

Sarah for some reason had a really hard time staying skeptic. Certainly, such stories existed, but what were the chances of something like this happening? Yet for some inexplicable reason, she couldn't help herself but believe this complete stranger, who happened to be the sister and friend of the two girls who saved her ass earlier. She eventually decided to let things be. It wasn't like she was going to really get to know the girl in front of her.

"So, you skipped like...one...two years?"

"Two." Ruby nodded. "It's really hard to keep up in class sometimes...well that's mostly my fault. Sometimes I get so bored, I just can't listen, especially when Professor Port tells us one of his "amazing adventures". Or worse, Professor Oobleck, who talks so fast! And he wonders how we have a hard time keeping up with his lessons. It's already hard enough for me. Sometimes I think it was a bad idea accepting Professor Ozpin's offer and entering Beacon two years early."

~Beacon...nope, doesn't ring any bells. Must be some small or unknown school. Maybe I'll bother to look it up tomorrow. If the internet works by then.~

"But luckily I have my sister, Blake, and Weiss helping me out whenever I need it. Weiss especially looks out for me, though she would never openly admit it. At the same time, she's kind of a slave driver when it comes to my grades. She often threatens to beat me up or steals my cookies, if I fail in a test. But hey, it works."

"That sounds...interesting," Sarah said on the outside. Inwardly, however...

~That's downright disturbing. Why'd that Weiss girl quote, unquote "care" so much about the grades of that girl?! And she threatens her with physical pain? Well, doesn't look like it's serious, else poor Ruby here wouldn't be smiling like an idiot.

…

Why does that remind me of a smile of an anime girl?~

"Anyways, can I have some more?"

Sarah blinked a few times, being forcefully brought out of her thoughts. Ruby held out the empty plate to Sarah, smiling ever so brightly, like a little happy girl.

"Sure." The auburn haired girl took the plate and walked over to her stove, filling it up once again. "Good thing I made much more than anticipated. Guess the other girls will come here too to get seconds," she said more to herself than to Ruby. When Sarah was back at the table, Ruby busied herself wolfing down the food, while Sarah wondered about the sleeping arrangements. There was her bed, which would need some new sheets if any of the girls wanted to sleep on it. She didn't have a second mattress, however, her couch could be extended and she did have enough blankets for everyone. However the couch would need to be shared and she only had two more pillows, meaning they too would be needed to be shared. Well, technically she could give up her own pillow for someone else, but still.

"Sarah?"

"Hah? Huh? Oh sorry. Was lost in thought there for a second."

"Huh. What were you thinking about?" Ruby asked, now curious.

"The sleeping arrangements." The auburn haired girl quickly explained the current situation they were in, considering sleeping arrangements. Once she was finished, Ruby stood up and put both hands on her hips. "Then it's decided. Team RWBY is going to have their first cuddle sleep!"

"Excuse me, what?!"


	4. Chapter 4

"I can't believe I actually agreed to this…" Weiss muttered, a light blush appearing on her face.

"Well, it's either that, sleeping on the ground or in the bed of a complete stranger." the hidden cat faunus whispered to her teammate, while in front of them their rather gracious host, pulled out the bed from under the couch and then proceeded to put multiple thin blankets on it.

"And I don't think Ruby of all people would be thinking about...that. You know." Both girls blushed at the implication but quickly shook the thought off. When Ruby mentioned that the whole team slept together in one bed, Weiss and inwardly Blake as well might have overreacted a little bit. Only Yang immediately understood what her sister meant and was non-plussed with the situation. She and Ruby had slept together in the past before. Granted they were kids at the time, but that didn't mean much for Ruby. The blond also wasn't too worried about Weiss or Blake "corrupting" her sister. Sure Blake enjoyed some rather mature literature, but Yang was definitely worse personality wise than the Faunus. As for Weiss, she was...Weiss.

"Alright." Sarah got up from the couch, after placing the last blanket, to at least make it somewhat comfortable to sleep on it. "I'm gonna look for the pillows and the other blankets now. Be back in five." the brunette announced, quickly heading towards her room. Team RWBY was left behind with the TV muted, as only commercials were shown at this very moment. Ruby placed herself on the couch, already doing Sarah's work. The rest were a little bit more careful, as each of them sat down, now that they all had space for themselves.

"So, any of you gonna change?" Yang asked, looking down at her own clothes.

"I think that would be counterproductive." Blake pointed out. "Besides, as Huntresses we won't always have the luxury of changing clothes or even brushing our teeth. I think it would be best if we get adjusted to that fact as soon as possible."

"Well, while I agree with you on the matter of clothes, I think we should at least use what is given to us and do some basic personal hygiene." Weiss opined to the matter.

"I don't think Sarah has four spare toothbrushes, though." Ruby pointed out, lying down on the couch.

"Personally, I think she has done more than enough for us already." The hidden Faunus stated her opinion. "We shouldn't use more of her generosity than we already have. Tomorrow, we should get into contact with Beacon as soon as possible."

"Yeah. They're probably going to search the entire Emerald Forest for us after we suddenly went dark." Yang stated, looking at the television. "I hope they don't have us listed as MIA already. Don't wanna give our families a heart attack, you know?"

"Yeah…" Blake quietly agreed, thinking about her own family. Weiss didn't comment on the issue, as a family was a rather sour subject for her. Luckily for her and Blake, no one else had anything to say about this and their conversation went mostly to the TV-Show and the various animals that were shown. About ten minutes later their hostess Sarah joined them on the couch, having everything prepared and even found a bag of unopened chips in her room. She mostly kept to herself and enjoyed the program on TV and mostly only spoke if one of the other girls asked her a question. However, all five of them were tired from the day, four because of their recent mission and one because she was mentally exhausted from blocking out the unfortunate experience of the day and tending four guests at once. Sarah asked if anyone needed a toothbrush, but they all declined. Soon enough the lights went out and everyone retired for the day.

XXX

Despite his name, Detective Coldwell enjoyed the cold just as much as a plant enjoyed an inferno going on right next to it. Sadly criminals could care less whether it was or cold. When they fucked shit up, they just fucked shit up. Right now, he was standing in the middle of the street, next to the North Graveyard bus stop. If there wasn't something like proper procedures, the police would have been able to dump the corpse right then and there.

Bad jokes aside, the situation was quite serious. The entire street was closed thanks to the murder, at least it looked like it had been murder, happening. Police tape was wrapped around poles, which had been placed on the streets, while the front lights, as well as the blue lights and street lights, made the entire area visible to the human eye. Still, even with all of this, the forensic guys searched the entire area with flashlights in order to hopefully not miss a possibly crucial piece of evidence.

The good Detective, a lengthy man in his fifties, with short gray hair growing out of his skull carefully approached the dead body. He was overall dressed in black with heavy boots and a coat keeping his body temperatures at reasonable levels. The old man had seen many corpses in his days as a detective, but this one definitely took the cake. Not that it was the most gruesome corpse he had ever found, hell no, but the poor sap was special in his own way. The man had been clean cut in half! From down his crotch to all the way up to the skull. It kind of reminded the detective of those Japanese Cartoons, which his niece loved to watch. Blood was covering the entire area around the body, having leaked out of the

"Holy Macaroni! What the shit happened?!" the old man exclaimed, upon seeing the dead body. One of the younger police officers approached, looking a bit pale.

"S-sir. We...uh….we...that is...well...I...think…"

"Calm down, officer. Take a deep breath and tell me what you know." If Coldwell wouldn't be used to the sight of gruesome crime scenes, he would probably be panicking as well.

The policeman followed the advice of the detective, before giving his report. "Sir, well..." The officer sighed. "Sorry, sir. This is all, a lot to take in."

"I know." Coldwell nodded. "Take your time. It's natural to be distraught after seeing...this." the detective gestured to the cut in half corpse.

"Yeah….alright. Sir, the victim is a Mathew Dawson, 33 years old. We found multiple business cards from Hesob Constructions, so we assume he works there."

"Judging by the suit, he worked at one of their offices." The detective mumbled. "Such a shame. That one looks pretty neat. Anything else about the victim?"

The officer shook his head. "Not really. His iPhone malfunctioned because it fell into the puddle over there, so we couldn't contact any possible relatives or co-workers. Forensics have it in one of their bags if you want to take a look at it. They said there's a possibility we might recover almost all of the data. One of them said it happened to him one time and he learned a few tricks through the internet."

"Good to hear. Any witnesses?"

The officer pulled down his cap. "Just one, but we're not sure about her story. She was drunk and on drugs when we questioned her." The officer took out his notepad and looked at his notes. "Her name is Liliana Stones, a prostitute. Between begging us for money and alcohol, she claimed to have seen a woman in a red outfit and a white animal mask. The woman had a sword with her and then cut Mr. Dawson in half. The ambulance arrived afterward and the paramedics brought her to the Mother Hospital. We...uh….hope to get accurate testimony, after her recovery."

"Hmm." The detective frowned and looked over to the corpse once more. "To her credit, it actually looks like he was cut in half in one full swing, but by a sword? Looks more like heavy machinery was involved."

"You have an idea, sir?"

"A theory, yes. I'm pretty sure Mr. Dawson died not here, but somewhere where heavy machinery is used. A factory that uses huge blades for example to cut materials. It would explain why he looks so perfectly cut."

"Well, then I have to disappoint you, Coldwell."

The detective and the police officer turned towards the new voice. It came from an old man in his sixties, wearing a brown jacket and heavy pants to shield himself from the cold. The man also wore a small pair of glasses, a hat and white rubber gloves."

"Doctor Steward. It's been a while." Coldwell greeted the court physician with a nod. "And what's wrong with my theory?"

"Simple, my good detective. The amount of blood around the body. Given that, it is still liquefied and the sheer quantity of it, the man had to be killed here and nowhere else. Unless it turns out that the blood is false and someone just brought some red colored water with them, but I highly doubt that."

The detective crossed his arms, annoyed. "And there goes my theory. Still doctor, I have to ask, is there something out there that can cut a human cleanly in half and is it transportable?"

"Your guess is as good as mine." the doctor said with a shrug. "I have never had a corpse in a state like this. Something that apparently cut the victim in half. Not only does it need to be reasonably sharp, but you also need put enough into the swing to cut through the body. After all, this is not only meat you're cutting through, but also a lot of bones. They're more durable than most people believe."

"Thanks for the info doctor. Anything else outstanding?" the detective furiously took notes on his own little notepad.

"Other than it is fascinating to see a spine being cut open right in the middle? Excuse me, in my line of work, some of us tend to make rather distasteful jokes. As for the time of death, I advise you to go with the witness' testimony. The cold temperatures make it hard to estimate the time, so we're open from one to five hours ago." The doctor explained.

The detective turned back to the officer. "When did the phone call came in?"

"About an hour ago. We arrived here ten minutes later and secured the perimeter."

"Hmm, at least an hour." Coldwell mused. "I assume the witness called the police?"

"That's correct, sir. From what we heard, she was rather frantic and sometimes not understandable. But we got the message. To be honest, no one really believed the report to be true, until we saw it ourselves. Pranksters, kids, drunks...they all call the line daily, but we're required to head out anyway. This was one of those rare cases, where something actually happened. Can't say I'm happy about it, but it is what it is." The officer rubbed his arms a little during his speech, in order to keep himself warm.

"Mhm. What about the witness? Do we have any information on her?"

"Ms. Stones? I personally arrested her a few times for drug possession. She doesn't have a real job and has been a prostitute for years now. If memory serves right, she's somewhere in her late only thing I know about her personal life is that she had an abusive father. Her mother died when she was five. I can only imagine the kind of childhood she had."

"Definitely not pretty." the detective agreed. "Anything else?"

"Not on hand. I can send you her profile and everything else we have on her later."

"Much appreciated. By the way, are there any cameras nearby?"

"Uh…" the officer looked around. "Well there's only the graveyard, so...ah! The supermarket down the road. It is only a stretch, but maybe our killer passed the building and got caught on one of the outside ones."

"It's a stretch, but maybe we get lucky." the detective sighed. "Did you find any evidence that might give us a lead?"

"Some thrown away cigarettes, a can of bear, a small softball, but honestly? Anyone could have thrown that stuff into the bushes. But we've only been here for an hour and admittedly most of us have been rather distracted by the corpse, sir. You know...because."

"Yeah…" the detective trailed off. "Well, I don't think we'll have this one solved by Christmas. Better cancel your plans, officer."

The man sighed, holding his head low. "My wife is going to kill me."


	5. Chapter 5

"Ahhhhh!" *thud* "Ow~~~~"

Sarah let out a pitiful whine, upon hitting the ground. Her blanket followed soon after, covering the girl partially. She slowly pushed herself off the ground and shook herself like a dog, causing the blanket to fall off. Drowsy from both the fall and the lack of sleep, Sarah got up on her exposed feet, shivering a little, when they came into contact with the cold ground. Partially blind, the girl slowly navigated through her room, until she could feel the handle of her door. She pushed the door a little, before turning the handle, in order to avoid unnecessary noise and potentially wake up her guests. With the door opened, Sarah could see into the living room. Technically at least. There was no source of light turned on, not surprising, given that it was around two in the morning. The only thing she had to navigate was the Fritz Box with its tiny lambs showing which functions were currently available. The "Online" lamp was still turned off.

This tiny thing was quite enough for Sarah to walk through her living room without bumping into anything. Given that her living room was pretty sparse, to begin with, it was a no-brainer for her to find the bathroom door. Although, it probably would have been a good idea to use more of her brain, as the front part was now complaining very loudly about the blunt force trauma it received from hitting the bathroom door. Luckily it seemed that the sudden noise did not wake up anyone from the shared bed. Sarah could hear one of the girls groaning in her sleep and another one made sounds of movement. But none of them did anything more and soon the only sound in the room was the slow and steady breathing of the four.

Sighing silently, the brunette entered the bathroom and turned on the light, disorienting herself for a couple of seconds, until her eyes had adjusted themselves to the light. Looking at the mirror she could see that her hair was messier than it usually was after a night in bed. Blood veins were clearly visible in her eyes, making it look like she spent the entire night in front of her computer. Her head certainly felt that way.

In order to accommodate for those things, Sarah turned the faucet, allowing water to flow into the sink. She then proceeded to use said water to splash it into her face. It was a well-tested method of clearing her head from drowsiness, allowing Sarah to think properly once more.

~That was...one fucked up dream. I need a little rush.~

Turning off the faucet, Sarah silently exited the bathroom, turning off the lights. She stood there for a couple of seconds, listening if she accidentally woke up one of her guests. Hearing no movement, the host-oriented herself on the wall, having one hand constantly touching it. She did that until she reached the kitchen, where she silently closed the door and turned on the lights. The sink was filled with the dishes used during the evening meal. Sarah had been too lazy that evening to clean them. Besides, the kitchen smelled of food almost 24/7.

The girl walked over to the fridge and looked inside. In a matter of seconds, she took out a cola can, opened it and drank half of its contents in a matter of seconds. Afterward, she let out a huge sigh of relief, feeling the cold liquid filling her stomach. Soon enough the unhealthy mixture of sugar and caffeine would enter her bloodstream, making her feel even better.

"Is it really a good idea to drink something like this right now?"

"Aiie!" Sarah shrieked, upon hearing a voice. Turning her head, she found out that the kitchen door had been opened and that a pair of yellow eyes was looking at her from the darkness. Startled she took a few steps back, hitting the window's ledge. Sarah watched the pair of orbs intently, as they came closer until a person was revealed in the light coming from the kitchen light bulb.

"O-oh! Blake, was it?"

The girl with the bow on her head nodded, showing no emotions on her face. "I heard you scream." the checkerboard colored girl asked. "Had a nightmare?"

"...Yeah. Kinda obvious, huh?" Sarah chuckled, taking another sip from her can. "Sugar helps me calm down."

"That sounds...contradictory," Blake stated as a matter of fact.

"Oh, it's pretty simple. For the next ten minutes I'll be wide awake and afterward, I'll drop dead and fall asleep. It's helpful when I have to deal with such pesky emotions, such as sadness, compassion and the such. Haha, oh, the sugar is already working." Sarah laughed over her own words, emptying the can in between laughs.

Blake looked at the girl strangely. "Are you alright at least?" the hidden faunus asked, approaching the girl. "I know something like this isn't easy to cope with."

"...I'll be fine," Sarah replied, deciding to take another cola can out of the fridge. "Oh, do you want something?"

"Some tea if it is not too much trouble."

"Sure." Sarah nodded enthusiastically, opening a couple of cupboards. "I hope you like lemon. It's the only tea I really drink."

"Lemon is fine." Blake tried to assure, but the success was limited due to her none-caring way of speaking. Nevertheless, Sarah heated up some water and took out a cup for Blake, placing it on the table. Additionally, she placed sugar and milk on the table as well, not knowing what her guest's preferences were. Five minutes later both faunus and human were sitting on the table with blake slowly moving the spoon in her cup.

"Sorry for waking you up, by the way."

Blake looked up from her cup with a raised eyebrow. "Why are you apologizing? Your reaction was completely normal. In fact, so far you have been able to hold yourself together, which is actually quite concerning. Hiding your emotions like that is never a good thing, especially after...a traumatic experience." A small voice in Blake's head was calling her a hypocrite.

Sarah's reaction to the little speech was to blink dumbfounded. "Wow," she said, opening her coke can. "That sounded...kinda deep. Yet at the same time cheesy. Like, bad movie cheesy." she commented, drinking from her cola. "But in all seriousness, I'm more or less fine. I'm not as shaken as I thought I'd be."

It was a total lie. For someone as life experienced as Blake, she could easily see through lies like that. It was all in the details, the unfocused eyes, the small twitch on the lips, the tapping of the single finger...Blake had been on a couple of infiltration missions for the White Fang.

"I guess the dream was just an aftershock. Kinda like after my parents forced me on the roller coaster ride that one time. I panicked so badly, I hurt my arm and had nightmares about the ride for two days straight." At that moment Sarah grinned like Ruby when the team leader had eaten the cookie from someone else's plate.

Seeing as the girl wasn't ready to talk about this as of yet and who could blame her, seeing as this has only happened a couple of hours ago, Blake decided to change the subject.

"If you are sure. While we're here, are there any books you read?" the cat faunus asked.

"Pff, oh god. I haven't read a book outside of school purposes for five years. And I'm out of school already, so nope. Don't have a book right now." Sarah explained.

"I see." Blake took a small sip from her tea.

"Do you read anything?" Sarah asked.

"Yes. Mostly romance and adventure novels." She didn't mention that some of her materials were 18 plus.

"That so?" Sarah shrugged, looking at the clock in the kitchen. "My mom loves to read. She reads every evening before going to sleep. Not sure what she reads, though, was never interested." she informed the Faunus. "I'm happy with my manga. Do you read any mangas?"

"...Not really. I prefer fewer pictures when reading something."

"Everyone their own, I guess."

Sarah yawned, feeling the sugar rush fading away already. Seeing as she had an already opened can in her hand and knowing that it wouldn't taste good in the morning, she decided to drink it all at once. A heavy weight could suddenly be felt in her stomach.

"Ahh, that was good. Not gonna be able to sleep for another couple of minutes, but meh. It's a weekend. Not gonna need to work 'till Monday."

Blake actually stopped in the motion of drinking her tea. Wasn't it already Wednesday? She thought back to the previous days and the lessons she had. And indeed, from her calculations, it should be Wednesday. She took her scroll out of her pocket and checked the time. Around two in the morning and it was actually Thursday.

"You know…" Sarah spoke up, seeing Blake holding what the brunette assumed to be a smartphone or iPhone. "I can actually try to get the internet back online. Just need to reset the box in the living room."

Blake thought for a moment but shook her head. "No, I don't want to accidentally wake up the others. We have had quite the day behind us."

"If you say so." Sarah shrugged again. She stood up and threw the two empty cans into a trash container underneath the sink. "Welp, I think I'm gonna hit the hay soon. Oh and if you really need to contact someone and I'm still asleep-" Sarah opened a cupboard and took out a couple of toothpicks wrapped in plastic "- there's a hole in the back of the box. You need to push one of those inside to restart it. And you need to push really hard, by the way. Once that's done, it'll take about thirty minutes until it's back online. Really sucks, the thing at my parent's home only needs three." She yawned. "Sorry, tend to ramble when I'm sleepy. Good night."

"It's no problem," Blake assured. "Thanks for the tea. Good night."

Blake watched her host stumble through the darkness of the living room for a while until she disappeared in her room. Blake's cat hearing abilities allowed her to listen to the girl behind the door hitting something and cursing quite considerably until everything went silent. Finishing her tea, Blake turned off the lights and silently made her way back to the temporarily shared bed of Team RWBY. If the faunus was honest, she'd almost rather sleep on the ground. Sleeping in her clothes was uncomfortable enough, but sharing such a small bed with four people?

Weiss especially had been a little difficult to deal with. At first, the girl had moved around for an hour. Blake guessed being who she was, she had the most comfortable bed in the entirety of Remnant and as such it was quite a lot to demand from the heiress to not only sleep on the couch but share it with four other people. Eventually, the heiress managed to fall asleep. At first, Blake had been relieved, thinking she might finally get some sleep. But oh how wrong she had been. After about twenty minutes, the heiress had all of the sudden tightly wrapped her arms around the faunus. Just like she did once Blake returned to bed.

"Not again…" the faunus muttered, feeling Weiss subconsciously snuggling her face against Blake's now exposed cat ears. At least once a day the faunus tried to give her ears some "fresh air", so to speak. Unfortunately, it seemed as if Weiss silently adored her fluffy ears, seeing as her subconsciousness ordered her body to stay rather close to Blake. "This is going to be a long night." The faunus mumbled to herself, closing her eyes.

XXX

The following morning, Yang woke up with her sister cradled within her arms. Ruby's breathing was slow and steady, her face showing a content smile. Yang smiled right back and slowly stroked Ruby's hair. The younger sibling hummed in approval, snuggling her face into her older sister's chest. The blond chuckled a little and placed her chin on the collective strand of red and black hair. She could now feel Ruby's breaths tickling. In a way, this was pretty comforting for the teenage brawler. Having her little sister in her protective grasp was a very comforting experience for Yang, always had been in fact. She had developed a kind of motherly instinct over her sister, because of her mother's passing. Of course, the blond would never be able to replace Summer, no one would be able to do that. But nevertheless, Yang did the best she could to be there for Ruby to the best of her abilities. Which might or might not have resulted in her sister gaining a certain fondness of fighting not to mention killing. Grimm only, mind you. At least Yang hoped it was Grimm only.

A sudden movement underneath her arms caught her attention all of the sudden. Ruby had woken up and was looking directly at her sister's face, her silver eyes still half closed. She let out a cute little yawn, making a good imitation of a puppy at that moment.

"Morning Yang." the redhead mumbled.

"Morning sis," Yang whispered, slowly stroking her sister's back. "Sleep well?"

"Mhmm." Ruby nodded placing her head back on Yang's chest. "You're the best pillow. So snuggly."

"And you're the best teddy bear." the blond replied, hugging her sister just a little tighter. "Reminds me of the old times. When you got sick, I snug into your bed to keep you company."

Ruby giggled lightly. "Yeah. And when I recovered, you'd be the one who was sick. Dad got really angry at you that one time."

"Good thing he couldn't really shout at me because I felt really like shit. By the time I recovered, he already forgot about it."

The two sisters shared a smile and just laid there in the dimmed room. Rais of sunshine were already entering the room through tiny slits in the shudders, yet none of the two felt like getting up. Instead, they silently decided to keep quiet and listen to the breathing sounds of their respective partners. For a time, the two were content in just doing that. Ruby especially enjoyed feeling Weiss' back pressed against her own, as it gave her a sense of closeness to her partner, something she'd been trying to build up the entire semester. It was a work in progress.

Sadly the calamity had to be broken eventually. It was by none other but their host Sarah, who appeared to have grown a lion's mane overnight. Seriously, from what the two could see, it appeared as if the girl had transformed into a lion faunus. A very tired lion faunus, who had her upper body hanging low, almost dragging her arms over the ground. In a zombie-like fashion, the girl raised her arms and almost violently took the WLAN-box of the wall. She turned the thing around a couple of times as if she was searching for something. Yang and Ruby gave each other a look before they proceeded to silently observe the girl. Eventually, the girl let out a groan, smacking her own forehead with the device in her hands. She hangs it back up on the wall and then sluggishly moved to the kitchen, where she was out of sight of the sisters.

"What was that all about?" Yang wondered, feeling Ruby shrug in her embrace.

"Dunno. Maybe she's not a morning person?" Ruby guessed.

A moment later the sound of bare feet hitting the wooden floor appeared once again and so did Sarah. She held something tiny in her hand, which was barely visible in the dim lit room. Once again she grabbed the box from the wall and turned it around. With a growl, the girl began to what could only be described as to stab the back of the router multiple times and in rapid succession. Weiss and Blake shifted a little bit from the noise but remained asleep.

"What's she doing?" Ruby whispered to her sister.

"Acupuncture?" Yang offered, as the thing in her hand or her fingers to be precise slightly resembled a needle.

Finally, there was a very audible *CLICK* sound. Following that the tiny lamps started to blink slowly for a couple of seconds and turned themselves off entirely. Then, seemingly out of nowhere the top lamp started to blink in rapid succession. Sarah turned the thing around and let out a satisfied "hmph", before putting the box back in its place. Letting out a yawn, Sarah tiptoed to the best of her abilities to her bathroom, having not noticed that two out of four guests were already awake. Once she disappeared behind the doors, Ruby placed her head on Yang's shoulder, feeling much more at ease, now that the noise was gone.

"Mmm, five more minutes?" the younger girl asked.

"Let's make it an hour," replied Yang with a yawn. "Tomorrow, we'll be back to our old schedule. Might as well use the time we have now."

Silently agreeing with her sister, Ruby closed her eyes and allowed Yang to rest her head in front Ruby's own. Yang even managed to make the effort to pull the blanket over the sisters, so that the pesky sun wouldn't annoy them anymore.

XXX

Later that morning everyone had more or less woke up. Weiss and Blake and found themselves in a rather peculiar situation, where they were facing each other and had their arms wrapped around each other's back. They silently agreed to never talk about this, not knowing that Yang had already taken a picture of the two sleeping together.

While Sarah was busy in the kitchen emptying her fridge of everything that looked edible, Weiss groaned and stretched herself. "Ugh, am I glad we don't have to repeat this."

"Agreed." Blake nodded, carefully hiding her cat ears under her bow. "Maybe we should bring our own sleeping gear to the next mission. Just in case."

"Well, I certainly hope this teleport incident will remain a one-time thing." Weiss huffed, readjusting her attire. "Are you quite done yet, Yang? Some of us wish to use the bathroom too."

Once the words were spoken, the door opened and the blond walked out, smelling her own hands. "That's some soap. Really Weiss? You are telling me to hurry up? Last time I checked you're the one spending half an hour each morning in the bathroom."

Weiss in response just let out a harrumph, before entering the small room and closing the door.

Ruby in the meantime was busy looking down at her scroll, frowning. "Come on, come on...urgh. I don't get it. This thing" she pointed at the fritz box "has internet, but I can't get a connection at all." she groaned.

Both Yang and Blake looked at her, before checking their own handheld devices, but both had the same result. "It looks like I can't even make phone calls," Blake stated as matter of fact. Her partner decided to try it out anyways and called her home in Patch via speed dial, but came up with an automated answer, telling her there was no service.

"Nope. Got nothing," she told the others.

"Strange…" Blake muttered, rubbing her chin.

"I'll ask Sarah if we can use her scroll." Ruby declared. "Or maybe asked her password for the internet."

The youngest of the bunch opened the door to the kitchen and was immediately greeted by a groan coming from the other side of said door. "Why me~?" came the indistinguishable whine from the host.

"Oooops. Sorry!" Ruby smiled apologetically.

"Is fine…" Sarah replied and appeared from behind the door. She only wore a white t-shirt, black sweatpants, and socks. "Morning, by the way."

"Good morning!" Ruby greeted back. "Say, could we have your internet password?" The smaller girl asked, pointing at the home telephone lying on the counter. "None of us seem to have a connection."

"Really?" the brunette asked, blinking a couple of times. From her sweatpants, she took out her smartphone and checked the status of the thing. "Huh, everything seems fine now. Wait a minute." She quickly dialed a number on the display and pushed the call button. A second later the sound of her home telephone ringing could be heard throughout the entire apartment. Satisfied, Sarah ended the call and looked up to Ruby. "Everything fine on my end. Uhh...know what? You can have my laptop. I hid my password somewhere and forgot where exactly I put it. It'll be faster if you check that way or use my phone."

"Umm, can we use the laptop? We could really use a map right now, you know...travelling purposes."

"Sure." Sarah shrugged, not seeing what was wrong with that. After all, she still assumed her guests to be a bunch of cosplayers on their way to a con, who luckily got lost and saved her ass.

After two minutes of rummaging through her room, Sarah came out with the bulky device in her arms. The others watched her, as she turned the thing on and fully activated it for the others, by entering her password. As soon as the inner workings of her laptop processed everything in good old fashioned ones and zeroes, it revealed the desktop, which had the picture of an anime woman with red eyes, wolf ears, and a tail. She had white hair, red markings all over her skin, which continued on the white kimono she was wearing and had some kind of rainbow burning disk on her back. She was sitting in a field of flowers, with various animals around her.

Aside from the picture, the desktop was rather bare bones for a teenager. It had the standard stuff, two google chrome links (story not sponsored by Google or any other company that might/will be mentioned), a folder labeled "Music" and a folder labeled "Games".

"There we go." Sarah placed the laptop on the tiny table and allowed Blake to sit down in front of it. "You need a mouse?"

"No thanks. I'm good."

"Great. I'll be in the kitchen and prepare breakfast. And please, do me a favor and stop crushing my back, when you walk in."

The girls inside the living room chuckled at the mention of Sarah's misfortune. The girl in question left the three others alone. Ruby and Yang sandwiched their faunus friend between themselves, as the black haired girl opened an unfamiliar browser.

"You sure you don't want a mouse, Blake? I mean, it is breakfast time."

Blake resisted the urge to groan at her partner's joke, while Ruby giggled at the joke. It was one of her sister's better ones.

"Google…" Blake mumbled to herself. "Must be a search engine for some small company." Not one to be picky about what search engine she used, the faunus quickly typed in Beacon Academy. The results...weren't what she expected. There were apparently multiple beacon academies in the world, each having their own website. However, what caught red, black and yellows attention the second it appeared was the very first search result. It read the following:

"Beacon Academy | RWBY Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia" -This was the headline and a link to the website.

" wiki/Beacon_Academy" - The actual website, written down in green letters.

"Beacon Academy was an Academy located in the kingdom of Vale for training teams of Huntsmen and…" - Apparently, these lines were the first few paragraphs of what was written on the site.

"Beacon Academy/Image Gallery · Huntsman Academies" - Two additional links.

….

There was a minute of silence between the teammates, as all of them processed individually as to what they were seeing.

"What the fuuuuuuck?" Yang was the first one to vocalize her surprise.

"We have a fan club?!" Ruby "exclaimed". Well, not really. A better way to describe it would be: "it was a weak, high-pitched shout".

"Okayyyyy…" Blake started slowly. "There are...a lot of of...plausible explanations for this."

"Such as?" Yang asked, her voice indicating she didn't believe her partner.

"Weiss!" Blake snapped her finger, rather uncharacteristic, but at the moment, she was a little bit on edge. "Weiss is pretty famous. I'm sure she has a lot of fans and admirers and by proxy, she must have affected us in the public eye in some way. Not to mention, we took on not only Torchwick but the White Fang head on." Blake silently cursed, realizing what she just said. Their actions surely painted a huge ass target on each of their backs.

"Should we...check it out?" Ruby asked meekly.

"Might as well." Yang smiled all of the sudden. "I'm kinda curious what they have written down about each of us."

"That's what I'm afraid of." Blake and Ruby said at the same time. The two looked at each other dumbfounded, before chuckling. Yang used the opportunity to open the link and after a comparable lengthy loading time, the website finally revealed its contents. On that day, Team RWBY's life was destined to change forever, as the first lines were burned deep into their memories.

"Beacon Academy was an Academy located in the kingdom of Vale for training teams of Huntsmen and Huntresses to slay the various monsters that plague Remnant. The academy was formerly run by its Headmaster, Ozpin, and was destroyed following Cinder Fall's assault on Vale along with the Grimm and White Fang."

Beacon destroyed.

Vale assaulted by Grimm and the White Fang.

At that moment, Weiss decided to come out of the bathroom, adjusting the tiara on her ponytail. "No wonder people with less money call me spoiled," she muttered to herself. "Only having this enclosed space every day...huh? Girls? Are you alright?"

The three members of RWBY looked up to Weiss, showing no emotions whatsoever. Blake simply waved Weiss over to look at the screen. "Huh? What's wrong?" the clueless heiress asked, walking over. Ruby allowed her to place herself between the leader and the faunus. It only took Weiss a moment to fully comprehend of what she was seeing. She gasped, putting her hand in front of her mouth.

Blake's finger moved quickly, as she opened a separate page from one of the links the website provided her with through the various names. And then she clicked another one. And another one. And another one.

With each link, the picture became clearer and clearer for Team RWBY, until they landed on a website called "YouTube". Specifically, they were on the page of a user called "Rooster Teeth", where the first thing that sprung to their eyes was a video playlist, which was titled: "New to RWBY? Binge Volumes 1-3."

Scrolling further down, Blake found that there was a playlist dedicated to Volume 4 of RWBY. After looking at it intently for a few seconds, she scrolled back up. Her hand shook a little as she moves the mouse cursor over to the video labeled: "RWBY "Red" Trailer".


	6. Chapter 6

Sarah found herself with a little problem at her humble abode. Prior to what she thought, there simply wasn't enough bread to feed every single soul present in the household. Not that there was nothing to eat at all, just not enough. Given that Sarah mostly lived by herself, this wasn't all that surprising. Spending money on for example five kilograms of bread would have been a waste.

Now normally, the lack of any kind of bakery goods wasn't a problem, given that the next bakery was literally a five minute walk away, house stairs not included. Since it was a Saturday, the shop would be open until eight in the evening, plenty of time to get something quick.

The problem lay within Sarah's cosplaying houseguests. Now, they might have saved her life or "simply" prevented her from getting raped and naturally as a thank you, she offered them to stay for the night. It was the least she could do for them and probably still not enough. However these girls were still strangers. Even if Sarah was probably back in the span of fifteen minutes, there was no telling what those girls could potentially do to her home. They could just ransack the house for everything they deemed worth stealing, destroy the rest for good measure and leave, before Sarah even came back.

Of course that all was assuming the girls were really those kind of people. So far Sarah wasn't able to get a good impression of them. Ruby appeared to be very energetic and Weiss a little snobbish, but that didn't really mean anything. Yang and Blake? Sarah still drew a blank one on those two. Well, aside that Blake wore some freakish contacts that glowed in the dark. How didn't she blind herself?

Shaking her head and trying to get her thoughts back to the matter at hand, the young woman opened the freezer once again, trying to see if she didn't freeze some bread and simply forgot about it. But after searching through all three drawers, she ended up empty handed.

"Well, crap."

~Oh man. I can't exactly let them go hungry! It's not like they would hold it against me...I think I don't really know them. But I also don't wanna disappoint them! At the same time, they might steal- aargh, fuck it! It's a five-minute walk, two minutes waiting in line at most and five minutes to come back! No problem whatsoever.~

Having made up her mind, Sarah walked out of the kitchen and into the living room. To her mild surprise, she found all of her guests awkwardly huddle on her couch and staring at her laptop screen. Music was coming out of the tiny speakers in the front of the machine.

Curiosity having overtaken her, Sarah walked over to the others and looked at the screen from behind Weiss. There was a video going on, labeled as RWBY "Black" Trailer. On it, there was a girl with similar looks to Blake and another guy fighting a robot on a train. It kind of looked like something that would fit in the Final Fantasy 7 universe.

~R. W. B. Y? Never heard of that anime. Wow, looks kinda awesome.~

"Excuse me." Sarah leaned forward, startling the other girls a little bit. They watched her carefully, as she moved the mouse to a plus sign beneath the video. She pressed it, opening up a small menu. She then proceeded to add the video to her "watch it later" playlist.

"Gotta have a watch on that later," she said, standing straight again. Having the attention of the girls, she quickly told them her plans. "So, uh...I just noticed that I have not enough bread for all of us. I'm gonna head out real quick and buy some, alright?"

"Sure," Blake answered in her usual none-caring tone. "Uh, do you mind if we watch some more, while we wait for you?"

"Eh, no problem. Just don't leave any comments under my name, alright?"

"Of course."

"Right then." Sarah nodded and walked over to the door, leading outside the apartment. She quickly grabbed her keys and jacket and went outside, leaving with a "be right back". Once the door was closed, team RWBY didn't return their attention to the paused video. In fact, Sarah's little intervention appeared to have brought the four huntresses in training out of a daze and back to reality. All of them looked at each other, uncertainty written all over their faces.

Subconsciously Ruby's hand sought out Yang's, who in return held it tightly, yet reassuringly. The blonde also moved a little closer to her half-sister. Weiss felt a shiver going down her spine, just by thinking about the implications the three videos gave her. As for Blake, the Faunus subconsciously checked her bow, trying to feel whether her ears were still hidden or not.

For a while, the only sound that could be heard was the cooler of the laptop working, constantly keeping the delicate machinery at an acceptable temperature. One would have been able to cut the tension with a butter knife. Team RWBY kept glancing at each other, but none of them ever said anything. From time to time, one of them opened their mouth, but closed it just as quickly, second guessing the things they wanted to say. It wasn't until the laptop display turned itself off that one of them lost their temper. That one person being the Schnee heiress.

The white haired girl slammed her hands on the small table in front of them, causing all the other girls to shriek in surprise.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!" the ice queen shouted, pointing at the laptop. Seeing as the display was black, the girl furiously moved the mouse, in order to get the video back on display.

"This….THIS….! I….I….I don't even know what to say! This is outrageous!"

"Try downright disturbing." the faunus spoke up, her voice having lost all of its usual deadpan manners. Instead, she sounded uncertain as for if she was facing five King Taijitu at once with no ammo left in her weapon. "This...I-I mean how! I...I didn't even tell you about this." Blake faced her friends slash teammates.

"...This?" Ruby spoke almost in a whisper. "You mean...the video?"

Blake turned her head towards Ruby and nodded slowly. She turned her gaze back to the video, which was stopped mid-combat between the Atlesian Robots, Blake and Adam Taurus. Just seeing the bull faunus, even if it was animated and on a screen brought up a mixture of emotions in Blake's stomach, which she barely managed to suppress with all of her willpower.

"This...this looks like the last mission I went on with the White Fang," Blake spoke slowly, her voice quivering a little. "We…we simply wanted to disrupt the dust transport. Cause trouble for the SDC."

Weiss tensed up a little but managed to remain quiet.

"If this goes on like I remember...we'll defeat the robots. Adam wants to set the charges. I asked about the board personnel. And he...he…." Blake looked down on her knees, forcefully shutting her eyes.

Yang placed a comforting hand on her partner's shoulder. "He wanted to blow them up with the train, right?"

Blake nodded, unable to say another word. Weiss frowned in disgust, not because of her teammate, but because of Adam Taurus, a name she was only way too familiar with. She took the mouse once again and skipped the video a few times. It showed a few more fight scenes until she finally found the scene where Adam and Blake were standing in front of each other, which was pretty close to the end. The heiress hit the play button and the first thing they all heard was Blake's voice coming out of the small speakers.

"Goodbye."

The Blake in the video then proceeded to cut the link between the Wagons, so that the cat faunus would be left behind. The video then played a tune, the screen turned red, with Blake's black silhouette visible. The scene quickly changed to the now all too familiar RWBY logo, with Ruby, Weiss, and Black being revealed. Yang was the only one left as a silhouette.

"Just like back then…" Blake breathed out.

"This is messed up," Yang commented, glaring at the screen. Ruby now held to her sister's arm, shivering a little upon what she had just seen. The brawler quickly wrapped her entire arm around her sister, pressing the younger girl against her own body.

"I'm starting to think the explosion has knocked me out and I'm dreaming." Weiss clutched her temples with her hands. "I certainly hope this is the case."

"If so then we're all dreaming the same thing," Yang spoke slowly her eyes turning red and back to Violette every now and then.

"Of course a dream image would say that," Weiss said sarcastically.

"Girls?" Ruby spoke up, already sensing an argument coming up. "There's still the "Yellow" trailer left. Maybe we should watch it?"

Everyone looked at her, causing her to shrink back.

"I-I mean, it just MIGHT answer some questions?"

Staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaare.

Ruby then decided it was best to hide her face inside her sister's chest, ignoring the ominous feeling of being watched. Yang couldn't help but chuckle at the antics of the young teenager. The blonde brawler slowly stroked circles over her sister's back, trying to calm her somewhat down. Given the situation the team was in, it was a small miracle that Ruby's breathing steadied itself with the girl calming down, at least a little.

"Welp, on the risk of all of us losing our collective minds, how about we watch me kicking some serious butt?" Yang offered with her trademark grin.

Weiss groaned, but her finger was already on the mousepad. "I can't believe I am doing this."

XXX

In the meantime, Sarah stood in the longer than usual line in front of the bakery section. Behind her was a small kiosk and to her right was the entrance to the actual supermarket. As always, she was tempted to just go in there and buy herself some sweets, but luckily she had a very good reason not to waste her money on sweets, namely that being her guests waiting for her. Just her luck that now of all days the line would be longer and to top it off, it was moving forward at a snail's pace.

The girl in blue let out a frustrated sigh and decided to check the internet for something to distract her. However, to her surprise, her phone showed her that she missed a text message, which was strange. She never received any kind of text messages for multiple reasons. One being that her contact list was rather sparse and mostly consisted of co-workers and a few-

Oh, that was it. It was Sandra, one of her co-workers. In fact, the two worked in the same department and thus shared an office. The message read:

"Hey Sarah,

do you book Buderus on KOST 140 or 141?"

Sarah resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Sandra worked for far longer than Sarah at their workplace, she should know the answer.

"It's 194. Why'd you ask?" Sarah typed back.

To her mild surprise, it only took a minute for a reply to come.

"Couldn't send the pays, 'cause of the connection troubles. Am currently at work, just sending everything again :( "

The girl in blue winced.

"Oh, sucks. Good thing you just need to send the stuff."

"Me 2. Thanks, btw."

"Np."

With that conversation out of the way, Sarah returned to her actual objective and search for something entertaining on the internet. The video from before came to mind and she decided to simply type in "rwby" in the search engine. The results came in quickly, showing a to her unknown site called "roosterteeth", followed by Wikipedia, because of course and a fandom Wikia page. There was also a YouTube video: "RWBY Chapter 1: Ruby Rose".

The text under the Wikipedia page was what caught Sarah's attention:

"RWBY is an American 3D web series created by Monty Oum for Rooster Teeth. The show is set in the fictional world of Remnant, where young people train to …"

~Anime from America? That's gotta be a first one, as far as I'm concerned anyway. This is either a really awful series or really good. Given that I have four cosplayers of this series at home right now, it's gotta has a decent fanbase. Oh, the line goes forward. Move it girl.~

XXX

"Well shit," Yang muttered to herself after the video finished. "That's just like it happened."

"I'm torn between slicing the stupid thing up and asking you what you were doing at such a locale in the first place." Weiss groaned, sitting bent over on the couch, not really feeling like keeping up any kind of posture.

"I think I go with the latter one. What were you doing at a place like this?" Weiss asked in a disapproving tone. "It looked like you were searching for someone."

"Uh…" Yang looked away. "Why do you think I was looking for someone? Why do you think this is all real in the first place? Didn't you say you were dreaming?"

Weiss just deadpanned at her partner's sister for a whole of five seconds, before the blonde cracked. Yang let out a small sigh, suddenly wishing the video had shown something else.

"Yang…" Ruby tentatively spoke up, but the blonde shook her head.

"It's alright. It's gotta come out sooner or later anyways." the older sister gave the younger one her trademark smile, before facing the rest of the team.

"Well, you know how Rubes and I are technically half-sisters?" she asked the other two, who in return nodded.

"You see...long story short, I was looking for my mom. My biological mom."

"Oh." Blake and Weiss spoke at the same time.

Yang's smile weakened a little, but she continued talking. "Dad never really talks about her for some reason. Probably a bad breakup or something. I have been looking for leads for where she might be my entire life. Thing is, she didn't exactly tell anyone where she went. I checked out all the official stuff and every social media platform I know. Got nothing." Yang let out another sigh.

"Since there was nothing official about her, I started looking elsewhere. Over time I found out Junior is the kind of guy you ask when you want some info about someone. Rumor has it, he's on good terms with every major underworld player in Vale. Met quite a few actually."

"And every time you "met" one, another house disappeared." Ruby mock-complained.

"Hey, I didn't see anyone complaining about them being out of the picture." Yang defended herself.

"Dad had to explain to the police, why three different gangs tried to kidnap you!" Ruby retorted.

"Three gangs who are now serving in jail!"

Blake and Weiss looked at each other, as the siblings "bickered" back and forth.

"...I feel another headache coming up." Weiss complained. "Is it just me or did we end up with the craziest people in the entirety of Remnant in a team?"

"Uh…" Blake scratched her head. "I'm pretty sure Nora is- wait. Shouldn't we rather worry more about our existence within this plane, then the fact that two girls in our team are a little mental?"

"First of, we're still not sure what is going on. Second, I'm trying to ignore the particular fact that some random website claimed our school was destroyed by some woman or other and that someone made some videos about seemingly random occurrences in our lives."

Blake looked a little uneasy upon the last remark. The hidden faunus checked the laptop again and the first video in the playlist was labeled: "RWBY Chapter 1: Ruby Rose". Out of (morbid) curiosity, Blake scrolled down the list, going over their individual names. The pictures showed either members of Team RWBY, JNPR or other people Blake never met in her life.

"Well then!" Yang spoke out loud, getting the attention of Weiss and Blake. From the looks of things she just finished her conversation. "What should we do now? Wait, there's more?"

"Much more." Blake confirmed. "I'll be honest, just by reading some of those" she shivered "I...I'm just not sure if it's a good idea to continue watching."

Everyone looked at each other.

"It's not like we're gonna get any answers from not looking them, right?" Ruby raised her voice, getting her team's attention yet again. "L-look, I'm just as confused as everyone here about those videos, even though they were pretty awesome to watch. But if we don't watch them, it won't get us any further, right?"

The other three girls looked at each other and back to Ruby, each of them nodding individually.

"I'm going to file a complaint afterward." Weiss declared, once again handling the mouse pad. "Using our faces like this without our consent. Some people really have nerves."

"At least they got my good side." Yang grinned.

"I'm really concerned as to how he or she got this information in the first place. I would have noticed anyone following us, especially on a moving train." Blake put a hand under her chin, her brain going into overdrive. In the meantime, another video loaded on the screen.

XXX

Sarah sighed in relief, once she was outside again. She had her arms full with bread and all kinds of buns. She was in luck, as this week the bakery had a special sale going on when you bought a certain number of buns.

The girl avoided the way she used the previous day, shivering only thinking about what almost happened. She mentally chastised herself for even thinking about this. The last thing she needed was a mental breakdown now, though avoiding it was easier said than done. Sarah stopped in her tracks all of the sudden for no apparent reason, as multiple alternative scenarios went through her head. It got so bad that she actually started shaking in place. From an outsider's perspective, it must have looked like she was simply freezing. Luckily the distant sound of a car honk managed to get Sarah back to reality.

The girl needed to orientate herself a couple of seconds before she remembered that in fact she had not been beaten to a pulp or worse raped. Biting her lower lip, Sarah almost ran all the way home, trying to get to safety. While she walked at a quick pace, she always had her eyes open for people, her basic thought being that no one would do anything to her, while there were witnesses. Luckily cars drove by on a fairly frequent basis, which helped the brunette keeping her anxiety down.

Finally, after five long, agonizing minutes, Sarah entered her house and dashed all the way upstairs, almost colliding with one of her neighbors. Apologizing rather rudely, the girl continued her way up, this time with a little more care. When she finally arrived in front of her door, she dropped the paper bags and fished for her keys in her pockets. Her hand shaking a little, she managed to open the door at her second attempt and let out a huge sigh of relief.

"I'm back!" she called in, taking the bags back into her arms and entered. She found the cosplayers back where she left them: on her couch. Though this time, they weren't focused on the laptop. Instead, it looked like Sarah just interrupted some kind of discussion.

"Sorry, it took so long. More people there than usual."

"It's alright."

"No problem."

Multiple answers hit her at once.

"Mhm. So uh...I already prepped everything in the kitchen. Just take whatever you want, 'cause I really need to use the bathroom." And without another word, Sarah stormed off. Once a "click" sound could be heard from the door, Team RWBY looked at each other for the umpteenth time this day.

"This is not going to be easy, is it?"


End file.
